Pineapple Upside Down Pancakes with Rum Syrup

Today is free pancake day at IHOP! And I happen to work across the street from an IHOP but upon leaving the parking lot at work I looked across and the lot at IHOP was so frickin’ full I decided to head home and make some for myself.

Seriously though, today is “Shrove Tuesday”, also widely known as “Pancake Day”. This is the day preceding Ash Wednesday, which starts Lent. This is a day of many names, also known as “Fat Tuesday”, or Mardi Gras in French. There is a large Polish community here in the Buffalo, NY area so this day is also known by some as “Paczki Day”. If you don’t know, Paczkis are Polish donuts, often with a cream or fruit filling. They will have paczkis in the local grocery stores and bakeries for a few days yet so I will have to make sure to pick up a box! Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to making some as they are ever so yummy! Genrally though, this is a day of indulgence. I have indulged in different ways in the past to celebrate Mardi Gras, including drinking much more than I should much to my regret the next day, but most often by eating too much. This year I will forgo the drinking extravaganza (until possibly tomorrow night at a Mardi Gras themed tapping party at a local Gordon Biersch brewery…) and stick with eating too many pancakes.

Since the goal here is “indulgent” I didn’t want to make any ordinary pancakes. I contemplated banana bread pancakes which have been on the docket for a while but I had a big fresh pineapple sitting on the kitchen counter just begging to be used to make pineapple upside down pancakes. With a rum syrup. Yup. It’s as good as it sounds.

Don’t worry though, I will get to those banana bread pancakes one of these days. 😉

Dad I’m going to have to make these pineapple upside down pancakes for you sometime- they are right up your ally!

Accumulated juices from cutting the pineapple (about 1/2 tbsp.) or 1 tsp. fresh lemon juice (don’t use a full 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice it could be too strong, unless you like that). You can thin out the pancakes with a splash of additional buttermilk if you wish

8 Maraschino cherries, optional

Directions for the Pineapple and Syrup:

Melt butter with cinnamon stick in a large heavy skillet over medium heat.

A note about my syrup: I was in a hurry trying to finish this off for dinner I would recommend reducing it further than I did. It was still delicious and cooked long enough to cook out the “raw” alcohol taste but it wasn’t quite at the thickness that it should be. If you like a thinner syrup then by all means stop at this point. Just saying, you can make this thicker with a longer cooking time! Also, this is a double syrup recipe from the recipe I based this on because many of the reviews I read said that the smaller volume simply wasn’t enough syrup (because it is so darn nom nom). But even i had leftover syrup, which isn’t a bad thing. This is AWESOME over ice cream!!!!!

Oh, Jess, you keep doing this to me. Something else I have to make, but you know what, I’m not going to wait until my arm heals. The right one hurts just as much as the left, so I’ve been using them both the past few days, so I think, since this is the last part of Mardi Gras, I’ll just make them for dinner some night. I love breakfast for dinner, and have always used eggs a lot at night.

BTW, I did the cold water test on my eggs and they stayed on the bottom. Freaky. Makes me wonder what those chickens eat to make the eggs stay fresh for 3 months.

Eggs last a long time sometimes, you’d be surprised. I always do this test before throwing them away. As they get “older” (or less fresh) more air accumulates inside the shell which makes them float.
Since I manage at a grocery store I know the “sell by” and “best buy” dates are only guidelines, which are not even technically required at all.
I will admit I’m surprised they didn’t stand on their ends a bit after 3 months but maybe because they were straight from the farm they were just THAT fresh when you brought them home. When we buy them at the grocery store they travel a long way before they find their way into our fridge.
Let me know what you think of the pancakes! These shouldn’t be too hard on you physically, just need to be able to flip them with a spatula!